"THEY'RE COMING BACK, so we don't have much time to talk," Deaton told April and Scott. He was talking about the hunters. The blonde had driven the werewolf to the animal clinic in hopes that something there could help him, but his boss was waiting for them. He had explained that Scott's wounds that he received from Derek wouldn't heal because they were from an Alpha.

Once they arrived, there was a dead man on the table, and he was covered in deep, bloody cuts. Deaton had briefly told them that the hunters had brought him and that they were on their way back to the clinic.

When the doctor pulled out a bottle of something and poured it on a piece of cotton, Scott looked uneasy. "What is that?"

"Rubbing alcohol," April answered for him, rolling her eyes at how clueless her best friend was sometimes. "Scott, it says it right there on the bottle."

"You don't want it to get infected, do you?" When Scott shook his head, the man reached down to dab the substance on the cuts in the boy's abdomen. "You'll heal the same. Just not as quickly, because of Derek."

"Okay, how do you know all this? Actually, how do you know anything?" April nodded along with the questions. In all of the chaos, they had forgotten to ask how the hell this random guy knew anything and everything about werewolf wounds. She couldn't remember Scott telling him that he even was a werewolf.

Deaton sighed. "It's a long story. What I can tell you is that I know about your kind. You kind, I can help." He ripped off a bandage and taped it onto Scott's stomach.

"That's not creepy at all," April muttered.

"This..." the veterinarian said once he was done patching up his employee, and they all looked over to the body on the table. "...This is something different."

Scott stuttered out, "Well, do you know who did it?"

"Do you know what did it?" the blonde girl next to him countered. She had assumed it was a werewolf, but she knew better to assume things about the supernatural in this town.

"No," Deaton replied. "But the Argents will. And this is the crucial part. They'll have some kind of record or book. It'll have descriptions, histories, notations of all the things they've discovered."

"All the things? How many different things are there?" Scott quizzed while April stared at the doctor, dumbfounded. 

The Sharpe girl, eyes widened, ran a hand through her hair. "You know, this seems like a piece of information that would've been very useful to know earlier."

The vet didn't get the chance to respond because they were interrupted by the sound of cars approaching the building. Remembering what Deaton told them about the hunters, Scott pulled April into the back closet and covered her mouth. They could hear the group step into the building, and for some reason, a chill ran down April's spine.

"I'm starting to think I need to buy a more prominent 'closed' sign." They could hear them talking through the door, but it was faint. So, the two teenagers pressed their ears against the wood in hopes of making out what everyone was saying.

"Hello, Alan," the voice of Gerard Argent spoke up. "It's been a while. The last I heard, you had retired."

Retired? April thought, a confused expression on her face as she waited for Deaton's reply. "Last I heard, you followed a code of conduct." Did they know each other? It was all very confusing, especially considering the Argents had just moved there that year.

"If you hadn't noticed, this body is one of ours," Chris told him.

Deaton nodded, "I did. I also noticed the gunpowder residue on his fingertips. So, don't assume I'll be swayed by your philosophy just 'cause I'll answer a few questions."

"He was only 24," the younger Argent man informed them. How young do they start recruiting for this kind of thing? Is there some sort of convention they go to? An auction? Where do you find so many people so willing to be murderers?

In reply, Deaton's eyes narrowed as he looked back and forth between the unwelcome men. "Killers come in all ages."

"All ages, sizes, shapes." Just the sound of the old man's voice made the blonde in the closet uncomfortable. "It's the last one that concerns us." 

Weren't they the ones with the book of magical creatures? Why were they asking Deaton?  Questions flooded April's mind as the hunters and doctor conversed.

"How about you tell us what you found?" Chris suggested, but it didn't really sound like the vet had a choice in the matter.

After a moment, Deaton began talking again, but the teenagers couldn't see what he was showing the hunters. "See this cut? Precise. Almost surgical. But this isn't the wound that killed him. This had a more interesting purpose."

"Relating to the spine?" Gerard asked.

"That's right," the doctor confirmed, which told April that the cut must be on the back of his neck or on his back. She had learned a couple things when she volunteered at the hospital every once in a while. "Whatever made this cut was laced with a paralytic toxin potent enough to disable all motor functions. These are the cause of death." April assumed that he had moved on the the scratches on the man's chest. "Notice the patterns on each side?"

The blonde had realized that earlier. the patterns looked like a human had dug their nails in really deep. Chris was the one to answer. "Five for each finger."

"Each claw," Gerard corrected him. That made more sense than just a human with really sharp fingernails. The man's hostility made the Sharpe girl realize why Allison's father was so cranky all the time—it runs in the family.

"As you can see, it dug in, slashed upward," Deaton explained, and April could practically hear him making motions with his hands. "...eviscerating the lungs and slicing through the bone of the rib cage with ease."

That's a nice mental image. Allison's father questioned, "Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

"No."

"Any idea at all what killed him?" He asked another question, which just raised more questions in Scott and April's minds. Why were the Argents, experts on all things supernatural, coming to Deaton for this? Why was Deaton being so weird?

"No." Said man shook his head. "But I can tell you it's fast, remarkably strong, and has the capacity to render its victims essentially helpless within seconds." Well, that wasn't very helpful in the figuring-out-what-it-is department, but now we know that it can kill someone, which was very new information considering the dead body on the table.

Chris sighed, "If you're saying we should be cautious, we get it."

"I'm saying you should be afraid. Be very afraid. Because in the natural world, predators with paralytic toxins use them to catch and eat their prey. This prey wasn't eaten. That means whatever killed him only wanted to kill him. In fact, killing may be its only purpose." Deaton told them. 

Now, April was really worried. If the Argents were supposed to be afraid of it, it must be something extremely bad. "You know, Scott, your boss is really freaking creepy."

After the hunters, left, Scott asked April to drop him off at the spot where he was supposed to meet Allison, and then he could run home. She offered to come pick him up again and take him home, but he declined. The whole interaction was totally pointless, however, because Stiles called them both to come pick him up from the Auto Shop, saying that it was an emergency.

He had explained that he saw something attack the guy at the shop, and the blonde immediately thought back to the conversation between Deaton and the hunters. Was there something out there, roaming the streets and killing people just to kill them?

The sheriff's son, who most likely just had a chat with his dad, climbed into the car with a frown. Noticing the expression on his face, April asked, "You okay?"

"Yeah," the boy answered, and the next thing he said worried them even more. "You're right. It's not like you. I mean, its eyes were almost, like, reptilian. But there was something about them."

"What do you mean?" Scott questioned with raised eyebrows. Stiles was being awfully cryptic.

The Stilinski hesitated for a moment before sighing as his two friends leaned in to listen. "You know when you see, like, a friend in a Halloween mask, but all you can actually see is their eyes, and you feel like you know them, but you just can't figure out who it is?"

"Interesting metaphor," April commented, nodding as she pictured the situation in her head. The flashing police lights made it a little difficult. "But, sure."

"Are you saying you know who it is?" Scott quizzed with wide eyes.

Stiles shook his head a little bit in response and took a deep breath. "No, but I think it knew me."

《❀》

"I'm so sorry about the other day. I'm trying. We'll get through this. I know because I love you," Stiles said to Scott as the three of them sat on the stairs. The blonde was trying her hardest not to burst out laughing while her friend spoke. "I love you more than...Oh, my God! I can't...You and Allison just have to find a better way to communicate."

Scott sighed in disappointment before explaining, "Come on. You and April are the only people we can trust."

"Well, why don't you get April to do it? I'm sure she'd be happy to deliver messages between the star-crossed lovers," Stiles groaned, looking back and forth between the two.

"Stiles, I don't think you understand," the Sharpe girl smiled before reaching over Scott to place her hand on his. "I don't run."

The Stilinski rolled his eyes at the girl's comment. "You know what? It's not exactly my forte either. You've seen me run. I have terrible stamina. So, you're just gonna have to suck it up."

"Is she coming to the game tonight?" Scott asked Stiles, interrupting the small fight going on between them.

"Yes, okay? Message complete," he answered, tired of having to tell Scott that he loves him, although it was quite amusing to the blonde next to them. "All right, now, tell me about your boss."

The McCall waited for a student to get up the stairs and out of earshot before filling Stiles in on what they had heard last night. "He thinks Allison's family keeps some kind of records of all the things that they've hunted. Like a book."

"He probably means a bestiary," the short-haired boy suggested after clapping in realization. 

Scott and April raised their eyebrows, and the blonde asked, "A what?"

"A bestiary," Stiles repeated as if they didn't understand for lack of hearing it. Actually, April didn't understand it, but Scott was thinking something else completely.

With a smug smile, he said, "I think you mean bestiality." If April had been drinking water in that moment, she probably would've done a spit take. 

"Nope, pretty sure I don't," Stiles shook his head quickly, staring at the smiling boy with a weird look. When both of his friends seemed confused, he explained, "It's like an encyclopedia of mythical creatures."

"How am I the only one that doesn't seem to know anything about this stuff?" Scott asked in disbelief. It definitely was weird that he knew the least about the supernatural when he was a part of it.

April patted him comfortingly on the shoulder. "It's okay, Scott. I don't either."

"Okay, you know, you're my best friend, you're a creature of the night," the Stilinski boy told him, and April shot him a playfully offended look. "It's kind of like a priority of mine. We're like a comic. You're the superhero, and I'm the guy in the chair. Allison is the girl you're trying to protect or whatever, and April is...Well, she's April."

"Hey, guys, we're kind of blocking the entire staircase," the blonde pointed out when she noticed a girl having to practically climb over Stiles to get to her class.

When they ignored her, she threw her hands up in the air and kept on listening to Scott. "Okay. If we can find it, and it can tell us what this thing is..."

"And who," Stiles added, and then they all said the same thing.

"We need that book."